bulletbob

My 2.5 1991 Sportmaster cases weep due to poris castings. No huge amounts of drive lube coming out but stained wetted surfaces. If they spent much time engineering the 2.5 lowers they failed epically. Cashbar you are exactly right about having an extra set of lowers. I have some backups.

hogie roll

Wilson isn't doing FEA on their modified drives. It's more of an art than science I'm sure. I'm constantly amazed at how much faith some you guys have in the engineering that these aftermarket outfits or boat builders do. Like brownie said, it's mostly trial and error. They don't have the money buy software licenses, pay engineers, and do structural analysis.

obrien

You clearly don't know anything about wcm. Mark has been in racing since before many of us have been around. he has been setting up boats, building and modifying props, reworking gear cases and running surfaces to know what works and doesn't work. It's not as much art as you think.
As far as speed racer breaking skews on their lowers, it's not the drives fault or wicks fault if the boat is not setup correctly or the operators put the boat into the corner beyond its capabilities

hogie roll

So tell me, does he do structural analysis via FEA software with force inputs collected from measurements on actual running boats? If not then he's just geussing how much can be taken off and how much should be left.

The anecdotes about failing lowers can not be blamed on set up because no one has the actual information to know better.

Todd D

There are templates used that show minimum thicknesses.

speicher lane

considering the quest for speed involves pushing the limits on design, man and machinery - the only way to find the breaking point it to go beyond it. To that extent, almost every advancement in speed, be it on land or water, is taking something originally designed by an engineer and pushing that component to undetermined limits and most likely there was a beer and a cigarette involved...modifying/IMPROVING gear cases is no different.

Getting back to Wilson, I would still gamble on this company as many do whether they have an engineer on board or not. Their results and client base only support their work.

Double Rigged

iTrader: (1)

As an outboard guy who has spent many hours with lower unit failures for one reason or another (water intrusion/broken parts/cheap casting that have leaked etc. Their factory lower units are far from perfect.
In going with aftermarket seals, expansion tanks that would void a warranty so to speak I have eliminated water issues, and failures down to zero. Mercury should thank us guys for saving them money.
Maybe if they had better castings and precision these type of things would not need to be done from an outside vendor.
Most of us have two sets of lowers because even if the break under warranty they do not always have new ones to send. Ask Zero Patience who waited two months with no replacement.
They actually had to extend his warranty due to loss of use which was a fight in it self.
I realize it is a tough call from either party. But you would think a company would like to improve it products to the best of its ability. This is Mercury Racing not Mercury Marine and you are paying a premium the race version 400r.

Keith Atlanta

FEA is only a starting point. Its still "junk in, junk out". An expreienced ME can get better results than a rookie/you still ahve to know what you are doing.

Wilson is the equivalent of Grumpy Jenkins versus Chevy. Yeah, a small block was good but after Grumpy got done with it, it was a whole lot better.

Caligula

Not really, Merc is adding on another 30k sqft for added capacity just to keep up with demand.

obrien

He has enough experience and has reworked more gear cases than most of us have ever looked at. So I would say he doesn't need an engineer or a computer program to tell him what works or how far to go. I would trust his knowledge and experience long before an engineer who says something will work based on his calculations and theory